Rhubarb Vinaigrette

This here is my new favourite salad dressing. I feel oh-so virtuous when I skip (yes! skip! sometimes..) out to the garden with my wood salad bowl and pluck green leaves from the garden directly into it, then drizzle my greens with creamy rhubarb dressing, made with rhubarb I’ve also yanked out of my own (or my sister’s) soil. I should probably get myself a Little House on the Prairie-style bonnet.

Tart rhubarb makes a perfect base for a vinaigrette, in place of (or along with) whatever acid you’d normally use, like lemon juice. Simmer chopped rhubarb for a few minutes, then puree it with honey, oil and rice vinegar (which isn’t as harsh as other vinegars) – the fibre in the rhubarb will add body to the dressing, but puree perfectly smooth. The result is a lovely pink vinaigrette reminiscent of pink poppyseed dressing – and if you dribble the canola oil into the blender as it’s running, it will thicken and emulsify, like a creamy ranch dressing or aioli. It’s not like a vinaigrette that separates and you have to re-shake before using – it stays pure and smooth and pink and sweet and tangy. Brilliant.

I started out making this with precise measurements, and have since tossed all that aside and simply simmered rhubarb in water, then pureed it with honey, grainy mustard and rice vinegar, and drizzled in canola oil with the motor running. I made vats of the stuff to serve up at the kitchen theatre at the Stampede. Even people who are generally repelled by rhubarb loved it. (Either that or they were just being nice. Thanks guys!)

Thank you for the recipe, we look forward to trying this. We live in ‘the Rhubarb Triangle’ in West Yorkshire, England, so we’ve tried everything from rhubarb wine to cheesecake but we’ve never come across a rhubarb salad dressing. The combination of sweet and sour should work well.

My favorite way to spend time with rhubarb this year 1s to stew it down with a few lurking strawberries, a light touch of cinnamon & ginger, and as much sugar as I think is needed. I spoon heavily over Greek yogurt and get ready to hide the bowl if any anyone approaches because I do not want to share! I may just have to sacrifice a few stalks of this great plant to try your dressing recipe as it sounds and looks dreamy. Thank you for sharing.

This looks amazing. I love a good pink dressing – though usually anytime I add beets to a salad the dressing automatically turns a lovely shade of pink. I’ve got some rhubarb and a lot of lettuce. I’ll be making this soon.

I made this tonight (x4) and it is absolutely fabulous! I could drink it!! Mine didn’t turn out pink. It was kind of flesh coloured. My rice vinegar was quite dark. I hadn’t used it in a while. It didn’t matter, because the taste was amazing! This is my new favorite recipe to use and share!

I drained the rhubarb (not seeing the other comment about using the water as well) but it was fine. My stick of rhubarb was 200g (~8oz) and the mixture came out mustard-coloured, rather than pink. If I had access to beetroot powder I probably would have put a little of that in to make it look pink. I’ll probably put a bit less mustard in next time so it doesn’t overpower the rhubarb.

Since the recipe needs honey, and strawberries go with rhubarb, I wonder whether the honey could be replaced by strawberry jam. Something to try next time!

Thank you for the recipe. I just made it and it is tasty! I also mixed everything when it was warm and it turned out very well. I do not like a lot of mustard so I added in 1.5 Tbsp., but after tasting it I added in the whole amount. I also didn’t realize I didn’t have honey until it was too late so I used agave and it worked well. For those of you who have the more green rhubarb like me, all I did was add 2 drops of food colouring and it is a nice pink – more appealing visually than the colour you get with the green rhubarb.